


The Wild Rose

by Arandottir



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Abuse, Childhood, Children, Dark Magic, Fear, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Magic, Monsters, My Own Universe, Mysterious, Other, Stars, Witch - Freeform, Witches, grey witch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29305590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arandottir/pseuds/Arandottir
Summary: Monsters are real, and they look like people
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Wild Rose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elara_h](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elara_h/gifts).



> This is my first work ever, please be brutally honest

1

Amelie Blackwood. 

She was only a small child, perhaps eight, and yet the monster couldn’t find a way to scare her.

He lay under her bed all through the day, every day, wondering why he couldn’t make her cry.  
  


That afternoon, the monster looked up to the opening of the small bedroom door, and he saw a woman walked into the bedroom, dressed in a long black cloak, her hair as dark as her eyes.

He knew her, he knew she didn’t live here with this family, that she probably didn’t even live in this town. _His_ kind, they called her the fierce thing’s tamer, the grey witch, the wild rose.

”Hello,” she said, looking the monster in the eye, and she sat on the floor in front of the bed, so could see him clearly. Adults never saw monsters, that was why they got away with terrorising children. But this woman seemed to see him just fine.

“I’ve come to talk to you about your behaviour towards the children who live in this bedroom.”  
said the woman. 

The monster did not answer. 

“You must stop making Amelie Blackwood’s nights as frightening as her days. I am not leaving without removing you from under her bed.”

The monster laughed, throwing back his head. _Do you expect me to obey you, witch? I am a monster, I am immune to your dark magic._

“There is no magic here.” Said the woman. She was always so sly, always so good at saying one thing and meaning another thing entirely, but now she sat there before the monster, and the words that rolled from her tongue spoke only the truth.

“And you can stay here, if you like. I only ask you to stop terrorising the child. She faces a much more dangerous monster in the light, at least grant her sleep.”

The monster seemed curious about this. _She isn’t scared of me, that girl. Oh, how I try to frighten her, how I try so hard to make her shiver in her small bed, to call out for her parents._

_It never works. Why doesn’t she fear me?_

“I’ll show you, if you like.”

The woman offered her hand, and after a moment, the monster took it, and tried to pull her down, into the darkness, under Amelie Blackwood’s bed. But the woman was ready for this, as this is what monsters always did, and she’d dealt with a few before. Instead, she helped the monster up into the light.

The woman said, “Watch, watch what you notice when you aren’t lurking under a bed, oblivious to what unfolds around you.”

  
Time seemed to pass faster then usual, and soon evening fell, and it grew dark outside, and the moon shone in the sky.

Amelie Blackwood and her little brother, Kaiden, soon entered the room in their nightclothes.

They were just children, with round pale faces and big brown eyes. They were young, so young, and yet they lacked the look of childish innocence the monster was familiar with when he saw children like them. They did not see the monster, they did not see the woman. The monster raised what must have been an eyebrow, bushy and black and made of darkness, and he looked up at the woman.

_They cannot see us._

“No.”

_Huh._

The children climbed into their beds, Kaiden holding a stuffed bear, faded with age. They soon closed their eyes, but neither of them slept.

Then there was a commotion in the other room. A man, shouting, a woman, crying.

The children sat up in their beds as if on instinct, drawing their blankets around them. They looked at each other, and there was fear in both their eyes.

“This is why she isn’t scared of you.” The woman said, and the monster pulled its black eyes from the children to look at her. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes were hard and cold. The monster knew what that face meant, he knew why the woman wore it, and he was glad he was not the cause of it.

There was heavy, drunk footsteps outside the door, and Kaiden whimpered.

The door opened, flooding light into the room, and with it a large man, holding a bottle.

The harsh sent of drink was smelt all over him, and the monster watched with horror as the man’s face, red and angry, eyes rolling, fixed on Amelie. She pulled the covers over her head, and the man moved, stumbling, tripping, toward her bed.

_No, no. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. There aren’t any monsters in the light._

“Rubbish.” Said the woman calmly. Too calmly. “There are far scarier things in the light then you have ever met in the darkness. There’s much you don’t know.”

And then she let go of the monster’s hand, as the monster was suddenly afraid.

The woman approached Amelie Blackwood’s father. She stepped between them, she stood in front of Amelie and her bed. Her father frowned, an expression of confusion on his face.

“Leave.” Said the woman, but it was not in English. It was in the faerie tongue, and it is impossible to disobey anything spoken in the faerie tongue.  
You do not need to know how to speak the language to understand it.

“Leave.” Said the woman, again. “Leave this room, leave this house, leave this life if you have to. But leave. And do not harm these children, or your wife, again.”

So far, she had remained very calm. Then her eyes darkened, her dark hair flowed in the black magic she was using, and she said.

“If you neglect my words, I will seek you out. There is no place you could go that I couldn’t find you. And when I do, it will be dark. And you will be alone. And I will kill you, unmercifully. Do you understand?”

The father stumbled backward, he tripped over the rocking horse he’d broken nights ago, he backed out of the room, he didn’t come back.  
The woman stood, and she walked over and closed the door. The monster stopped squinting, the comfort of the darkness settling around him. He continued to watch.

The woman walked over to Kaiden, she lay the boy back down in the bed, covered him, touched his forehead, smoothed back his hair. The she walked back to Amelie, and she sat on the girl’s bed, and she held her hand. There is nothing in the world that can compare to the comfort and security of having your hand held when you feel alone.

Amelie Blackwood looked like she was feeling a lot of things all at once, and that is never pleasant, but then relief overtook her.

“I’m sorry,” said the woman quietly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you and your family sooner. If I’d known-“

“It’s okay!” Said Amelie. “You saved us now.”

“I promise I won’t ever let him hurt you, never again.” The woman said.

She was not surprised to see a stranger on her room, not even one so mysterious looking as the woman herself. It was not possible to describe her appearance, not when she was like this, but if you think of darkness, on a night when the moon is full, and you think of the darkness coming to life, and moving as if it were a living thing, with arms and legs and a torso, and with big celestial eyes, and long dark hairs that that is what the woman looked like most.

“There was something else in my room.” Said Amelie Blackwood. “Did you get ride of that too?”

“No,” said the woman. “He is here, in this room,” she turned to the darkness, to where the monster stood.

“You are my child.” Said the monster as he stepped over to Amelie Blackwood.  
It was the first time he had spoken aloud tonight.

“And I am the monster under your bed. I will protect you.”

The girl smiled at the monster, the kind of smile that is childish and forgiving, and missing a front tooth. And the monster slipped back under the girl’s bed, and slowly they both fell asleep.

The woman watched the girl, tenderly, and looked out the bedroom window.

Out in the dark, a man stumbled away, a bottle in hand, and he didn’t look back.

The woman soon stood, when she was sure that her duty was done, and she took her leave, and she idiot look back either, but that was because she was sure she didn’t need to.

And above the world, the stars glistened in the sky, watching all.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!! I will write more in this series if people like it.


End file.
